


The Hunters

by Lucky107



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Apocalypse, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:25:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The world is made up of two classes—the hunters and the huntees.  Luckily, you and I are hunters." - Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunters

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my seventh grade teacher who made us read Richard Connell's 'The Most Dangerous Game' despite how skeptical some of us might have been at the time.

Twenty-one years old.

The world falls apart in front of her eyes.

Sonja's sitting across the old coffee table in the living room from her aging grandmother in the fading sunset, their grim reality dancing in the shadows.  Between them is a chess board - a game Sonja never quite got the hang of - only half-complete.

"Sonja, dear, it's your move," Barbara reminds her, waking her from a daze.  "Are you sure you're feelin' alright?"

"Sure I'm sure," the girl - no longer a child, but not yet a woman - offers, visibly counting out her next move with her finger.

There's no particular strategy at play here; Sonja simply tries to keep her grandmother distracted as the day draws to a close.  It's too early to turn in, but too late to go outside and that leaves conversation or a game of chess.  Quite frankly, there just isn't a lot to talk about anymore.

Everything becomes redundant.

Even the lazy motion of her hand reeks of monotony as Sonja makes her next play, but as the last surviving residents of Knoxville, Georgia, this is as good as it's going to get for them.

Her grandmother moves a pawn a single space - a pointless action in Sonja's mind - and offers the girl a small smile.  In those big, brown eyes she sees right through her granddaughter's hard outer shell.  "You've been over to Roberta a lot lately... it's takin' its toll on you, child.  I can tell."

"Knoxville's been picked clean," Sonja argues.  "We have no choice if we want to keep what we've got here."

With cold, numb fingers, she slides her bishop up the board.

Given her grandmother's age, there isn't much they can do.  Sonja can't even think about hitting the road on an aimless journey into the unknown while her grandmother is still alive and it puts them in a frustrating position.  They just don't have any other options.

Barbara captures Sonja's bishop promptly with her knight.  "Don't you start worryin' on me, child.  You and me, we'll figure this ol' thing out."

The words are filled with reassurance, like a warm quilt that shelters Sonja from the chilly autumn air.  But somehow they feel hollow, resounding like an unheard echo.  Sonja's chest feels tight with all the could haves and would haves and she sits back from their game.

"We have to, Nan.  We just have to."

Before she knows it, Barbara is sitting beside her and securing a protective arm around the young woman's shoulders.  The warmth of human contact, a simple and welcome reminder that her grandmother is still alive, allows the tension to slowly ebb away.

At the end of the day, her grandmother is the only thing that keeps Sonja moving forward.

It scares her.

x x x

Thirteen years old.

As the teacher circulates the room, handing out old photocopied packages with a crude staple in the corner, a rough-looking girl with a split lip responds immediately with a groan.  The papers lie untouched on the surface of her desk and the faded title reads 'The Most Dangerous Game'.

To an uninterested middle school student, this does little to spark her interest.  It reeks of exaggeration and fictionalized lessons of morality.  She's already sick of the system and the games they play, force-feeding their messages to the subdued minds of their youth.

Sonja doesn't want any part of that.

No, she just wants to go home and sleep.

Forever.

x x x

Sonja stands alone in a bathroom that she presumes once belonged to a normal family.

Who they were is a mystery now, but she knows they didn't deserve the fate they met in their own backyard, enclosed by the very white-picket fence that once topped their American Dream like a cherry.

The mirror is dusty - even a little bit grimy with substances unknown - but staring back at her is the reflection of a woman far older than her years.  She's only just recently twenty-one and yet she already looks forty-five.

"Fuck," Sonja whispers and impulsively, she pulls her arm back in fierce anticipation.  The swing comes naturally, as if beyond her control, and she reawakens to find her bloody knuckles crashed amidst the broken glass.  Hell if that doesn't sting like a bitch, but she's glad for it.

As she inspects the rugged splits in her skin, she smiles a wary smile.  The tears that prick her eyes serve as a reminder that she's still alive—she's still human.

Even if her backpack is empty.

 

The front door opens and Barbara's hand hovers above the butt of the gun on the side table.

No strangers have come through Knoxville since the outbreak began, but it would be foolish to assume that none would - and Barbara remains sharp as a tack.  Anxiety grips her old bones every time that door opens, if only because the static of her old one-way radio buzzing lowly confirms that someone is alive inside.

Sonja is tired, evident by the shadows beneath her eyes, and her hand is wrapped up in the torn fabric of her own shirt.  Barbara is quick to relieve her of her empty bag.

"Oh, dear!  What happened?"  But Barbara doesn't have to ask because she already knows the answer.  She's known it for a long time, ever since Sonja began traveling out of town to find supplies.

They're beat.

Sinking down into the sofa beside her grandmother, a mess of sweat and exhaustion and unadulterated fear, Sonja whispers, "Nan, what're we gonna do?"

Silence falls between them and Barbara holds her granddaughter close.  "Sonja, dear, I—"

The static on the old one-way radio crackles loudly, like a fireplace in winter, and startles them both.  Barbara is the first to reach the device, turning the volume dial right up.  In her confusion, Sonja leans over the back of the old armchair and listens attentively.

A voice - a woman's voice - breaks through the static in short bursts of clarity: "... tuary for all... community... arrive, survive..."

x x x

The story starts out just as Sonja predicted: it introduces two hunters on a boat, searching for new game.  They travel south towards Rio de Janeiro, across the Caribbean Sea, in search of jaguars, and they're cocky about it.  The language used dates the publication and it frustrates her simple mind.  How is this relevant?

The thought drifts across her mind lazily and she chews on the eraser-end of her pencil.

_"What island is it?" Rainsford asked._

_"The old charts call it 'Ship Trap Island'."_

Jesus, even the suspense is bad.

Patiently, Sonja raises her hand and waits to be called upon.  Her restlessness is evident and the teacher gives her an acknowledging nod.  The rest of the class reads in total silence.

"Mr. Miller, why are we reading this?"  Sonja asks with a lack of tact.

Mr. Miller doesn't get cross with her, however.  He doesn't frown and he doesn't point her towards the principal's office with disdain because it's within her right to question her teaching.  Instead, he looks thoughtful.  "Does a story have to be current to hold value today, Sonja?"

Truthfully, Sonja doesn't know.

The thirteen-year-old Sonja has never read a novel before.  In fact, she even avoids magazine articles and newspapers, which might explain her struggle with Mr. Miller's English class...  She views reading as a waste of time.  She would rather be experiencing things for herself than reading about someone else's experiences second-hand.

Momentarily, Sonja feels like a fool for even asking him in front of the class.  "I suppose not... but it should have to hold some real-world merit.  'Ship Trap Island'?  Seriously?"

Mr. Miller just smiles.

x x x

Terminus.

The final destination—the end.

It's true, what they say, about all roads leading to Rome - or some oddly iconic form of it - and that's just where their road has taken them.  First it was the radio message, and then it was the signs, but now they've come to the end of the railroad tracks and finally they've found sanctuary.

They arrive at the gate at sunset, worn and wary from the road and unsure what to expect.  However, they are welcomed with open arms and minimal interrogation.

Somehow, Sonja feels it in her gut that this is it.

This sense of community is the raw foundation of human existence.  The dead have risen to reclaim the earth, but as long as there are still people in the world dedicated to rebuilding civilization... it's a world worth fighting for.

 

When Sonja arrives at the gardens by the front gate, she places a firm hand on her grandmother's shoulder.

"Mornin' Nan," she greets, ignoring the audience.  Leaning in, she gives her grandmother a small kiss on the cheek.  In the early morning's sun, she can feel the whole day light up before her.  The atmosphere is completely different from back in Knoxville.

Barbara catches Sonja's arm as she turns to leave, holding her elbow.  "You off to work outside the gates again today?"

"I am," she confirms.  Mary, who works alongside Barbara and her two sons in the garden, smiles kindly.  "I thought I would swing by and mention the surge in activity recently.  The dead ones are building up, but... I can't shake the feelin' there's somethin' else out there."

Immediately, the eldest of the boys sits back from the plot he's digging and asks, "What is it?"

"People?"  Sonja hazards a guess.  She can feel her grandmother's hand tense around her elbow.  "I don't know for certain that they weren't just passin' through, but..."

"The new guys—Chris and his men?"  Gareth suggests, helping to coax out the evident train of thought that catches on Sonja's lips.  She nods her head, her eyes firm and unwavering.  "I have my own suspicions about them."

There's something off about Chris beyond his choice face tattoos.

Sonja's never been one to let appearances make or break her opinion - she knows first-hand how cruel first impressions can be - but Chris... Chris is different.  It's more about what's on the inside.  He's smooth and cunning, but he lacks a certain sparkle in his eye that sets him apart.

Even when he laughs, he's just playing a role...

What part does Chris play, really?

x x x

The people in this story, Sonja realises, are only playing the role they were written to play.  Mr. Miller is amused by her answer to his question, but insists she keep reading for her own benefit—not his.  Now, she's determined to prove him wrong: she's going to read the whole story and she's not going to like a minute of it.

She's still on the first page, her eyes and mind stumbling over the text as she tries to process the words.  It's an incredibly complex piece for a bunch of seventh grade students, but she pushes on.

The content beneath the surface is abstract.

One line in particular stands out to Sonja as her eyes skim the paper:

_"Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing—with some wave lengths, just as sound and light have."_

Perhaps it's the addition of the dash, drawing her eye and holding it in place, but somehow she doubts this.  She finds herself reading it once, twice, three times just trying to grasp the hidden context of the words.

x x x

Among the screaming and the terror, Sonja cannot find her grandmother.

There are men with guns stationed at every corner of the compound, lining the fences and the rooftops.  They're armed to the teeth with skill enough to back up their demands: they want the camp and they're going to take it.

No one is in any position to fight back.  All weapons have been forfeited to avoid a bullet between the eyes and then they find themselves being separated based on various statistics—age, gender, physical strength—and rounded up into the boxcars left behind from the old world.

Just like cattle.

Sonja is alone at first, her eyes straining in the dark for a friendly face.  She can feel herself shaking - the nervous tremors rendering her useless - but she can't will herself to stop.  The fear, the sheer intensity of the dread, that pulses through her veins allow the gunshots and screaming to become static noise.

Where's Barbara?

She overlooks her friends, looking right through them as if they were strangers, because for the first time in her life, Sonja's truly alone.

 

The hours have become days and before long, the days have become weeks.

In passing they're called 'the takers' and their policy is simple: comply with demands and you might come back in one piece.  After hours became days and days became weeks, it became hard to argue with the comfort of obedience—even at the will of a psychopath.

As Sonja shuffles up the ramp and into the boxcar, shivering and shaking and pale as a sheet, one of her companions - a young woman named Theresa - hurries to steady her before she falls.  There's no hiding the limp in her left leg.  "Sonja, are you alright?"

But Sonja doesn't say a word, instead allowing Theresa to guide her into a sitting position against the corrugated steel siding.  Without hesitation, Theresa pulls back the fabric of Sonja's shirt to reveal a nasty knife wound.

"Jesus, Sonja," she whispers, stripping off fabric from her own sleeve to create makeshift bandages.  "What have you done?"

Carefully, but with urgency, Theresa applies pressure to Sonja's wound and attempts to stop the bleeding.  It's messy and precise and, with careful inspection, appears to be some kind of carving or initial.  It's a brand - a direct indication of disobedience - and by now, Sonja should know better.

In a shaking whisper, she confirms, "I'm already dead."

x x x

Before she knew it, Sonja found herself absorbed in the story of Rainsford and Ship Trap Island.

She knows she has nothing left to prove to Mr. Miller, but she eats up the rest of the story with fierce interest; Ship Trap Island became a manhunt - a savage, inhuman manhunt that left Sonja questioning the nature of humanity.  If there was no civilization left, what would become of the world?

The idea is unpleasant, especially for a seventh grader who knows nothing but the unpleasantry of mankind through sources as close to home as her mother's latest boyfriend.

As the bell rings and everyone packs up their belongings, Sonja is one of the last students to leave the classroom.  She always is.  She has a naturally lethargic pace about her, moving from one task to the next with little concern, but this is far from the truth today.

When she returns the package to Mr. Miller, he asks, "So?"

"So?"  Sonja parrots back rudely.  "You might want to consider updating the material, Mr. Miller."

Mr. Miller smiles a pleasant smile, as if he can see right through her life.  "Thank you for your feedback, Sonja.  I'm just glad you gave it a chance."

With a small, bashful nod, Sonja replies, "Sure," before she hurries out the door.


End file.
